


Haunted Houses

by iam93percentstardust



Series: 1000 Ways to Fall in Love [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Eventual Relationships, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Humor, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2020-10-06 09:22:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20504642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: Bucky decides that he doesn’t want to move toward the light after he dies. Instead, he settles down where he’s always lived and keeps everyone else out by haunting the place. He meets his match though in Steve, a real estate agent who’s too stubborn to give up on the house, and Tony, recently come into his inheritance and looking for a place to hide.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://thecw4kids.tumblr.com/post/152610530918/ghost-in-the-house-get-out-i-will-take-you-real) tumblr post

Bucky fights in World War II. Bucky _dies_ in World War II. Bucky decides that this is obviously homophobic bullshit and decides to spend the next umpteen billion years as a ghost. He’s pretty sure that he’s supposed to spend his time haunting something but he doesn’t actually know what so he ends up haunting his old apartment building (he should probably be concerned that no one there is surprised to see him but he’s too delighted by the fact that they even _can_ see him).

And then somebody had to come along and ruin the whole thing by tearing down his building and constructing a ridiculous looking brownstone in its place. _Gentrification_, Bucky complains though no one hears him (he’s only recently started hearing the term and no one seems to know what it means yet but he’s pretty sure it applies here). Now there are doors where there shouldn’t be and open space where there should be walls and he hates it.

So obviously, the logical and reasonable thing to do here is to become such an awful ghost that it forces everyone who tries to live there out.

It works great! Bucky yells and howls and stomps his feet and throws things across the living room and people come and people go (usually screaming as they leave). It’s the most fun he’s had in ages, probably since before he died. Sometimes, if the people who move in have a baby, he waits a few years before upping the ante again. He doesn’t want to traumatize the kids, even if their wailing does keep him up half the night. But he doesn’t let anyone stay longer than five years.

But then along comes Steve. Steve is a real estate agent. Steve is great with kids and has a fantastic smile. Steve has biceps the size of Bucky’s head.

And more than that, Steve’s _nice_. He walks in the first day alone and says, “Look, I know you don’t want people living here but there’s talk about tearing this building down if you can’t calm down and I don’t want to see you homeless. So can we just try to get through ten years? That’s all I’m asking for.”

Bucky tries but he hates people living in his space. The kind of people who have the money to live in his brownstone aren’t the nicest of people and Bucky wants them _gone_. Plus, there’s the fact that he gets to see Steve again if he keeps kicking people out of the house.

The talk about tearing the brownstone down never comes to anything more than that (probably because Bucky scares the daylights out of the contractors when they visit) and eventually Steve starts showing up even on his days off to talk to Bucky. He tells him about what’s going on in the world and who’s president now and “did you hear about Brad and Angelina?” (”Obviously not, Steve. I’m stuck in this house.”)

Sure, Bucky scares Steve half to death every time he shows up because he doesn’t know who’s walking through the front door and what if there’s a potential buyer and Bucky misses out on the opportunity to have them gone? He realizes it could probably be better but it’s not so bad (he resolutely doesn’t think about how Steve’s getting older each year (sometimes he realizes he’s very likely a little in love with Steve and the thought scares him)).

“GET OUT!” he screams as the door creaks open. “GET OUT OF MY HOU- oh hey, Steve.”

Steve glares at him. He’s got a newspaper tucked under one arm. Bucky doesn’t really understand that. The world’s moved on from newspapers to a new digital age (which is really annoying when he gets sucked into the TV next door- apparently ghosts operate on the same wavelength as whatever TVs do- but still) but Steve’s refused to move on with it.

“Have you sold the brownstone yet?” he asks.

“Obviously not,” Steve bites out. Sometimes Steve gets like this. He points out that he’s a fantastic real estate agent. He finds people _homes_ and then Bucky has to come along and ruin this one.

On days like this, Bucky finds that it’s best to change the subject as quickly as possible. “What’s in the news?”

Steve shakes out the paper. “Howard and Maria Stark found murdered in their beds.”

Bucky knows those names. They’re weapons developers, big ones too. “Any suspects?”

“Two. Their only kid, Tony, and their business partner, Obadiah Stane.”

Bucky glances at the picture. There’s pictures of all four on the front. Personally, he likes Stane for the murder. Tony- Tony’s barely older than a child and those eyes still had a naïveté to them that can’t be faked. He thinks that’ll be the last of the story but Steve seems hooked. Every couple of weeks he comes back with more news- Stane was arrested for the murder, Stane has a court date, Tony was found beaten half to death in a Manhattan alleyway, Stane was found guilty on the charges of the murders of Howard and Maria Stark and the attempted murder of Tony Stark.

Again, Bucky thinks that’ll be the end of it, only for Steve to keep coming back with stories about Tony. Tony’s inherited the company, Tony broke up with his abusive boyfriend, Tony, Tony, Tony. Bucky kinda wants to scream, “Well why don’t you just marry the guy if he’s so damn fascinating?” but he doesn’t. He wants Steve to keep coming back to the brownstone.

And then he finds out why Steve cares so much about Tony Stark. Steve pushes open the door and Bucky gets ready to do his poltergeist routine except Steve starts out by talking about him.

“I’m not gonna lie to you. This house comes with a ghost but Bucky’s a real sweetheart long as you treat him right,” Steve says, eyes shooting murder in Bucky’s general direction.

“I don’t care,” Tony Stark says dully as he looks around the foyer. He looks like he’s aged about a thousand years since Bucky last saw his picture. It isn’t right. Someone as young as him should look happy and carefree and not at all like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. And Bucky gets it. He gets why Steve’s been bringing him all this news about Tony because he thinks that maybe he’d feel like absolute shit if he hurt this kid the way everyone else has over the last few weeks. He wants to wrap him up in a blanket.

“Hi,” he says quietly, loosening his grip on the hall lamp.

Tony doesn’t even startle at his sudden appearance. “Hey,” he says, still as lifeless as he was when he came in. He _does_ keep his gaze fixed on Bucky though as Steve leads him through the house, nattering on about the wall fixtures.

“I’ll take it,” Tony says suddenly before they get more than a few steps into the kitchen.

“I- really?” Steve asks. He shoots Bucky another look, this one a little concerned. Bucky grins and nods slightly.

“Yeah,” Tony says, nodding resolutely. “I’ll take it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during Steve and Bucky's first meeting

Steve’s a real estate agent. Steve’s a _good _real estate agent. He grew up bouncing from foster home to foster home after his ma died and so he knows the value of a home. That’s what he wants for everyone else: the opportunity to find a house to call a home. With that kind of motivation, he has very few failures and even the people who end up leaving him say that he’d tried his hardest.

It’s why he doesn’t hesitate from taking on the brownstone on Rose Street. They say it comes with a ghost, a ghost who doesn’t like anyone but children and even then, only for a few years. They say it comes with a nonviolent but highly destructive ghost. They say the house is gonna be torn down if they can’t sell it.

Steve doesn’t want to see it torn down. It’s a gorgeous house and even angry ghosts deserve a place to live. He volunteers to add it to the houses he shows.

Three days before he brings his first family to see the house, Steve goes by himself. He pokes his head in before he steps in fully. At first glance, the ghost is nowhere to be seen. Then he hears a soft squeaking noise- not that of a mouse but of metal rubbing against itself. On a whim, he looks up.

The chandelier in the foyer is coming unscrewed by itself.

“Look,” he says hastily, holding up his hands in surrender. “I know you don’t want people living here but there’s talk about tearing this building down if you can’t calm down and I don’t want to see you homeless. So can we just try to get through ten years? That’s all I’m asking for.”

There’s a faint popping sound like the air’s being sucked out of the room and then a young man appears sitting on the chandelier. The thing that everyone says about ghosts is that in death, they look just as they did in life. Steve’s never had a chance to meet one but he has friends who have and they say the same thing: ghosts have the same coloring, the same shape, the same everything that they did before they died. So he’s not surprised to see a brown-haired young man in dark army pants and a white t-shirt. He doesn’t see any sort of wound but he’s also not looking very hard. Undead etiquette finds that sort of thing to be very rude.

“Steve Rogers,” he says quietly.

The ghost looks like he’s concentrating very hard. He disappears and then reappears in front of him. “Bucky Barnes,” he replies. He holds out his hand to Steve.

Steve takes it, half-expecting his hand to go right through Bucky’s. To his surprise, Bucky’s hand is solid- or not _solid _per say but rather what he imagines touching a cloud is like.

He says, “I’m the new real estate agent.”

Bucky lets out a mirthless laugh. “Resident ghost.”

Steve’s laugh is more genuine than Bucky’s, who gives him a small rueful grin. “Betcha didn’t expect ghosts to be funny, huh,” he comments.

“Weren’t you funny when you were alive?” Steve asks before thinking. He’s been told that some ghosts take offense at being asked about their prior lives but Bucky just shrugs.

“I thought I was but no one’s laughed at my jokes in about seventy years.”

“Well _I _think you’re funny,” Steve tells him stoutly. He hesitates. “Are we good? I’m showing the house in a few days and I want it to go well- for the family and you.”

Bucky fidgets, plucking at a stray thread on his sleeve. Steve can’t help but wonder if it had been loose when he’d been alive. “Don’t want anyone livin’ here,” he mutters. “But I’ll try.”

Steve smiles brightly. “Try is all I’m asking for.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set some eighteen-twenty years before the main storyline

There’s a boy in the brownstone.

Admittedly, there’s often a boy in the brownstone. Families with small children are the only types of people that Bucky lets stay for very long. But this boy is unique because this boy, holding onto his blanket in one hand and sucking his thumb, keeps looking at Bucky. Which is important because Bucky’s not currently visible.

At least, he thinks he’s not. He’s heard that older ghosts can sometimes lose control of their visibility but he’s pretty sure he’s not old enough for that yet. He looks down at himself- yep, still invisible. He crouches down to the boy’s level, only a few feet away from him.

“Can you see me?” he asks curiously.

The boy nods. In the other room, the boy’s mother is talking loudly on the phone with the realtor- some lady with big hair named Tiffany. Bucky doesn’t much care for Tiffany. Tiffany has made it clear that she doesn’t like Bucky and she’s been rude to him for the three years she’s been working with this house. But he’s willing to put up with her because she keeps bringing him families. Families are fun. _Kids _are fun. Kids make him feel almost like he’s alive again.

“What’s your name?” he asks. The boy sucks harder on his thumb. Gently, slowly, so as not to scare him, he reaches out and tugs the thumb away. He lets go of it almost immediately. The boy feels almost solid. That _never _happens. Humans always feel kind of cloudy when he touches them. But not this boy.

“You’re very special, aren’t you?” he murmurs.

“That’s what my mommy says,” the boy says finally.

Bucky’s surprised. The boy’s small enough that he shouldn’t be talking in complete sentences like this just yet. But there he is.

He holds his hand out for the boy to shake. “I’m Bucky.”

Shyly, the boy shakes his hand and says, “I’m Tony,” before sticking his thumb back in his mouth.

“There you are!” Tony’s mother says. Both Bucky and Tony turn to her. She swoops down and picks Tony up, settling him on her hip. The blanket falls from Tony’s hand, fluttering down to the floor.

“Damn,” the mother mutters. But before she can bend down to get it, Bucky picks it up and hands it back to Tony. The mother watches the exchange, clearly startled by the blanket seemingly moving on its own. “Well, we were told this house comes with a ghost,” the mother says casually though her gaze is still fixed on the blanket. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Bucky,” Tony says quietly, clutching his blanket tighter.

Tony’s mother smiles at him. “Is that our ghost’s name, bambino?” She doesn’t wait before heading into the kitchen. “Come along. We’ll wait until your father’s out of his snit and then we’ll go home."


	4. Chapter 4

Tony has an imaginary friend.

He doesn’t think that he’s so special in this. Lots of people his age have imaginary friends even if Howard always tells him that he’s too old for imaginary friends. But he thinks that _his_ imaginary friend is special because Bucky, unlike other imaginary friends, can actually do things like give Tony back his binket and feed him when Mama is too busy to notice he’s dropped his fork again. 

Mama calls Bucky a ghost. Tony’s learned about ghosts in school but he doesn’t think that Bucky’s a ghost ‘cause his teacher says that ghosts are supposed to be mean and Bucky isn’t mean.

Tony knows what mean looks like. Mean is what happens when Howard yells and throws things and they go to their other house, where Bucky lives, for a few days. Bucky isn’t like that, which means that Bucky isn’t mean, which means he can’t be a ghost.

So there.

“Do you have any twos?” Bucky asks.

Tony shakes his head. “Go fish,” he says, pulling his thumb out of his mouth just long enough to say it. Howard doesn’t like it when he sucks his thumb but as long as they’re at Bucky’s house, Mama doesn’t care. Bucky says that his teeth will grow funny if he keeps sucking his thumb but Tony knows lots of people who have perfectly normal teeth and they suck their thumbs so he thinks it’s a myth like vegetables.

“Drat,” Bucky says and draws a card.

“Bambino,” Mama calls, coming down the stairs. “Have you eaten yet?”

Bucky purses his lips. Tony knows that Bucky doesn’t like that he’s expected to feed himself but if Bucky lived with Howard, he’s sure that his friend would understand why his Mama is too tired to make dinner. 

“Bucky made mac and cheese,” Tony says, pointing at the kitchen. Mama frowns. Sometimes, when Bucky does things, she looks worried though he doesn’t know why. Even if Bucky was a ghost, he’d be able to move things so Tony can’t figure out why she’s upset that his imaginary friend does.

“Did you tell Bucky thank you?”

Tony shakes his head. “Thank you, Bucky,” he says quickly before she can look too disappointed in him.

Bucky concentrates for a moment and then his outline solidifies so that Mama can see him too. “It’s my pleasure, Maria,” he says, smiling crookedly at her. “Tony’s easy to take care of, no trouble at all.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees. “Cause you say it’s important to tell the truth.”

“Where did you learn a word like that?” Mama asks. She bends down and picks him up to give him a kiss on his cheek, ignoring his protests that they’re in the middle of a game.

“Bucky taught me,” he says, trying to squirm out of her arms so he can go back to beating Bucky at Go Fish. He succeeds but Bucky catches him before he can hit the ground and sets him at his place.

“He’s already talkin’ above his age, thought another word wouldn’t hurt him” Bucky says. “Too damn smart for his own good.”

Howard says that too but he doesn’t say it like Bucky does, all fond and smiling. When Howard says that, Tony knows it’s time to run.

Mama bends down and ruffles his hair proudly. “That’s my little bambino. Why don’t you two finish your game and then we can go out for ice cream?”

“Ice cream!” Tony crows, scrambling up, the game completely forgotten about in favor of getting something sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Find the original tumblr post for this au [here](https://iam93percentstardust.tumblr.com/tagged/ghost-au/chrono)


End file.
